Friday’s Fact

Check in each Friday for your weekly Get College Smart fact.

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For this week’s fact, Get College Smart brings you another profile of one of our resource websites.  This week’s featured site is Zen College Life.

According to the website, “Zen College Life is the leading source for college and degree information online.”  In particular, this site seems geared to the associate’s degree seeker or the student wishing to earn a certification. 

The proof is in the career guides, which include careers like auto mechanic, cosmetologist, EMT, and paralegal (not the kind of careers you enter after earning a four year degree).  Students who are more interested in a technical track should find the information on this site quite useful for helping them to understand the ins and outs of the career they might want to enter.

Do you have any favorite college resource websites?  If so, share them with us.  Email us the links: askcollegesmart@gmail.com

Virtual Campus Tours

Have you ever wished you could visit your dream campus but not have to shell out the money to get there?  Now, you just might be able to thanks to Google’s Street View Program, which now has a number of university partners.  For more info, check out this Los Angeles Times article. 

Friday's Fact

Check in each Friday for your weekly Get College Smart fact.


Fact: this website has undergone a few changes over the holidays.

You may have noticed the new page tabs just under the website title.  One of these tabs, "Resources," is a work in progress.  Currently, it has a list of several links to websites that are designed especially for undergrads, grad students and job searches.  Have any good "go-to" sites?  Let us know, and we'll add them to the list.

Today, I'd like to highlight a new favorite: Dr. Mom's Guide to College.  I was told about this site just this week in my department's start of term meetings.

I like Dr. Mom because she gives practical, no-nonsense advice that is good for all college students.  Also, I identify with her desire to help students be smarter about how they approach their education, especially when they are just starting out.

Take a few minutes to read Dr. Mom's Guide - you just might learn something!

Friday’s Fact

Check in each Friday for your weekly Get College Smart fact.

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Let’s go bowling!  This week’s fact (which just so happens to be a Saturday fact) pays tribute to the College Bowl season and the granddaddy of them all, the Rose Bowl. 

As many of you know, the very first bowl game was the Rose Bowl game of 1902, where Michigan routed Stanford in a 49-0 victory.

This year’s bowl season offers a lot of exciting matchups.  Is your team playing in a bowl game?  Who do you want to see come out victorious?

Friday’s Fact

Check in each Friday for your weekly Get College Smart fact.

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Spending a lot of time in the library lately?  If so, you should try out one of these libraries on CampusGrotto’s Most Beautiful Libraries list. 

The library above can be found on the campus of the University of Texas.  Pretty impressive, right?  Take a look at the list to see if your campus library is mentioned.  If it is, pay it a visit.  Studying is always more enjoyable when you can do it in a beautiful place (relatively speaking).

Friday’s Fact

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Click to view the enlarged graphic.

This graphic seems fitting for this time of year, when exams loom around the corner and stress levels are high.
 
Don’t let stress get the best of you.  Instead, take care of yourself, get organized, study as best as you can, and get help when you need it.  If you do these things, you will give yourself the best opportunity to earn the grades you want and survive the end of the semester.

Friday’s Fact

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If you’ve spent any amount of time reviewing your class notes lately, you can see how much time you spend doodling on the edges of the page.  Turns out, that seemingly mindless activity can actually be good for you.

The September 2011 issue of Cosmopolitan magazine references a study by the University of Plymouth, which found that doodling during a lecture or meeting can boost your memory by approximately 30%!  Why?  Researchers aren’t exactly sure, but they believe that drawing while listening to someone speak engages a part of the brain that would zone out or otherwise distract you with daydreams.  So the next time you’re trying to focus during a long classroom lecture, pull out your pen or pencil and start sketching.

Friday’s Fact

Check in each Friday for your weekly Get College Smart fact.

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Have you ever taken an English course?  Then you should be familiar with the Modern Language Association.  It’s the group that determines the format for English papers that your composition and literature professors love so much.

You may not know that MLA does a whole lot more than simply make life in your English courses difficult.  The organization also tracks and keeps up to date on issues that affect college students.  The latest issue this group is interested in: student debt.  Here’s a statement that MLA recently issued on the subject:

“Public attention has been directed recently to the educational debt students accumulate in the course of undergraduate, as well as graduate, study. A major contributing factor has been the increasing portion of educational costs students must bear in the form of loans. To reduce debt burdens in the future, we call on Congress, state legislatures, and institutions of higher education to calibrate educational costs and student aid in ways that will keep student debt within strict limits. We also call on them to hold in check tuition increases, which often far outpace inflation, and to ensure that degree programs allow for timely completion.”

One thing I like about this statement - it proves that major organizations made up of faculty are concerned about the students that they teach.  And this particular concern is one that extends far beyond the classroom, for college debt has a nasty way of following you around for years after college. 

That said, it will take a long time for the government and institutions of higher education to act on these issues.  That means that the burden of responsibility for controlling college debt rests firmly on your shoulders. 

How can you control school expenses and get a quality education?  Here’s a few tips:

• Choose a college that excels in your area of study and is affordable
• Consider attending a community college to complete your general education requirements
• Complete your degree in the shortest time frame possible
• Try to limit the amount of money you take out in student loans, and never take out more than you need to pay for your schooling.
• Apply for all the scholarships and grants you qualify for
• Take advantage of work-study programs, or use part-time work to help finance your education while you’re in school

In other words, start being financially responsible now.  It can save you a lot of heartache and stress later.

Friday’s Fact

Check in each Friday for your weekly Get College Smart fact.

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I was poking around on the American Association of Community Colleges website today, looking up facts for today’s feature, and came across some interesting numbers.

Not surprisingly, enrollment at community colleges is up 15% from the Fall of ‘08 to the Fall of ‘10.  I’m sure we can thank the financial collapse here in the U.S. for that increase, at least in part.  Also, community college students make up 44% of the undergraduates in the U.S., and they pay, on average, about $2700 annually for tuition.

Talk about a savings over the cost of your average 4 year college!  If you’re exploring your options for college, consider your local community college.  Attending one can really protect you from accumulating large amounts of school debt.  And if you’re just starting out at a 4 year college or university, check into what course you could take (on the cheap) during summer.  It’s an inexpensive way to free up time during your long semesters, and you might find that focusing on one course at a time improves your ability to concentrate on the course material.

Friday's Fact

Check in each Friday for your weekly Get College Smart fact.

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Debt seems to be a theme for Friday's Fact, so forgive me if I go back to this topic.  A recent report found that two thirds of the graduating class of 2010 left school with an average of $25,250 in debt.  That puts quite a hole in the pocketbook, and if you plan on going to grad school, expect the hole to get bigger.  

How can you manage finances so that you don't return all your post-graduation income to the loan companies?  Here's a few pointers:

• Choose an affordable school that is academically strong in your areas of interest
• Consider completing your gen ed courses at a community college
• Look for scholarships, and apply for all the ones you qualify for
• Don't waste time "finding yourself" in college - it's a really expensive way to discover what you want to do
• Work hard to pass all your courses - having to repeat courses or extend the length of your edcuation only increases your debt.

Friday’s Fact

Check in each Friday for your weekly Get College Smart Fact.

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In honor of Halloween, I bring you a link to the Top 10 Haunted U.S. Colleges list.  I can neither confirm nor deny the information presented here (meaning that it doesn’t necessarily qualify as “fact”).  But, I will reiterate the statement of the website’s author: my apologies to any readers who attend night classes at these institutions!

Have a happy – and safe – Halloween!

Friday’s Fact

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Here’s a fact that will get you angry: according to a report by Mark Schneider at the American Institutes for Research, approximately one fifth of full time students at community colleges drop out after their first year, and they receive almost $1 billion in taxpayer money to help fund their education.

This is unwelcome news to those students who depend on federal money to finance their education and are actually working towards graduation.  You know who you are, and you are fully aware of the drop in the amount of federal money you receive. 

While we can point to a weak economy to explain why less federal money is available for higher education, we can also point to issues like this one: waste and misuse of funds.  Federal money should go to those who deserve it: students who need financial support, take their education seriously, are actively working towards their degrees, and plan on using these degrees to become productive citizens.

Friday’s Fact

Check in each Friday for your weekly Get College Smart fact.

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As I sit and enjoy college football this fine afternoon while writing a Saturday edition of Friday’s Fact, I am reminded of a headline I saw on CNN last month: a recent study by the National College Players Association shows that scholarship athletes are struggling to make ends meet, in spite of the funds that they receive for playing their sport.

The report recommends that universities fully fund their scholarship athletes and allow them to make money through endorsements and other avenues that have been off limits to college athletes in the past.

Surely these recommendations will be controversial, to say the least.  Just consider Ohio State’s football team, which got itself into a whole heap of trouble when a few players sold apparel and awards and received improper services from local vendors.  That violation got those players suspended and lost the team a fine head coach, Jim Tressel.   

But if there’s any truth to the NCPA report, then something should be done to ensure that these revenue producing student athletes are not taken advantage of by their colleges and universities, don’t you think?

Friday’s Fact

Check in each Friday for your weekly Get College Smart fact.

In lieu of our regular Friday Fact, we would like to pay tribute to Steve Jobs.  Jobs lost his fight with pancreatic cancer on Wednesday.  He was just 56 years old.  Perhaps the greatest innovator of our age, he changed the shape of the world with creations like the Macintosh, iPod, iPhone, and iPad.
In 2005, Jobs gave an inspirational commencement speech to the graduating class at Stanford University.

Below are some of the highlights of that speech in the form of a video tribute that was recently posted on YouTube.

College students take note; this speech contains words of wisdom for you. 

#WISHIHADKNOWN Postcard Contest

Check out the #WISHIHADKNOWN postcard contest sponsored by CollegeMagazine.com.  Upload a photo and your advice for college freshmen, and you could win $500!  And be sure to share your entry with us here at Get College Smart – we’d love to feature your advice in a column.  Simply email us your words of wisdom at askcollegesmart@gmail.com.

What advice would we give?  Check out our postcard creation.

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Friday’s Fact

Check in each Friday for your weekly Get College Smart fact.

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Yesterday was National Coffee Day, so it seems only fitting to bring you a Friday Fact that honors one of the drinks that college students love best. 

Coffee accounts for 75% of all caffeine consumed in the U. S., according to a study by Hope L. Graven of Loyola University.  And while all college students know the benefits of getting their caffeine fix by drinking coffee (can you say late night cram sessions?), few understand the effects that this late night habit can have. 

Caffeine is considered to be a drug by some, and more people are addicted to it than any other drug, alcohol and tobacco included.  Overuse of this product can lead to behavior problems such as nervousness and insomnia.  Also, laboratory tests show that caffeine can trigger panic attacks.  So even though you may have been able to study all night thanks to your coffee buzz, chances are you may be too anxious during your exam to think clearly and too hyped up on caffeine afterwards to get the rest you need.

In a perfect world, you would not have to stay up all night to study, and you wouldn’t need a coffee buzz to get you through.  But let’s be realistic – cramming happens, and coffee can be a necessary part of it.  While the occasional late night coffee habit will not likely have a long term negative effect on you, you may want to consider whether or not that cup of caffeine is necessary at all times during the day. 

Why not try ordering up a decaf or half-caf coffee today?  Your nerves may thank you.

Friday’s Fact

Check in each Friday for your weekly Get College Smart fact.




ABC News recently reported that college students have the power to create half a million new U.S. jobs just by decorating their college dorm rooms!

According to their research, American college students, on average, spend $800 on back to college gear.  That comes to a grand total of $46 billion for this back to school season alone.  If college students spent all that money on American made products, the could create half a million new American jobs.

Chances are pretty good, though, that most of the gear you bought was foreign made.  See for yourself – start checking the tags on your bedding, towels, curtains, and dorm decorations.  Was any of it made in the U.S.?

How about all that gear you bought in your campus bookstore.  Where were that t-shirt, hoodie, flip-flops, and football jersey made?  China?  Vietnam?  How many American jobs would be created if your school’s bookstore started selling more American made products?

You can make a difference.  Start a petition – let your campus bookstore know that you want to see more American made products available for sale there.  The struggling American workforce will thank you.

Friday’s Fact

Check in each Friday for your weekly Get College Smart Fact.

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College enrollment has grown by leaps and bounds in the past several years.  According to the National Center for Education Statistics, enrollment in college increased 38% between 1999 and 2009, growing from 14.8 million students to 20.4 million students.

What does that mean for you?  You had a lot more competition when you applied to college, and you may not have gotten into your first choice school.  And now that you’re in college, you’ll have to work twice as hard to get into the popular courses or qualify for the best internships and scholarships. 
In order to stand out from the millions of other college students like you, you need to give yourself an edge.  Working hard in your classes, getting to know your professors, and networking – these are just a few of the things you can do to ensure your success.  And don’t forget to check in with Get College Smart for your regular dose of college advice.

Friday’s Fact

Check in each Friday for your weekly Get College Smart Fact.

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If you’re a college football fan, you know that ESPN’s College GameDay kicks off it’s 25th season this Saturday.  So this Friday’s Fact honors a college football staple. 
According to ESPN, Lee Corso (my personal favorite) has sported headgear over 190 times and has chosen the winning team 67.9% of the time.  Who will Corso pick this week for the LSU/Oregon game?  Tune in to ESPN at 10 am ET on Saturday morning to find out!

Reminder!

College Colors Day is TOMORROW!  Show your school pride wherever you are, and send us your pics of you in your college attire.  We’ll post them on our Facebook page next week.
Pics can be sent to askcollegesmart@gmail.com.